Lighting Coordinating Committee

Scope:
Lighting Coordinating Committee The Lighting Committee has endeavored to expand its efforts to follow the industry trends for greater use of non-filament light sources. These include High Intensity Discharge Lighting (HID), Neon, and Light Emitting Diodes (LED). Over the past three years, task groups have been formed to address the issues of powering and controlling these devices and create standards that will help the industry with design and implementation of these systems. Harmonization of lighting standards has also been an important part of our work over the last ten years. All signaling and marking standards have been successfully harmonized with Europe and Japan. Significant progress is being made with the forward lighting standards, however, it will take at least two more years for harmonization to occur. A significant change in vehicle electrical distribution will be happening in the next few years that may have a dramatic effect on lighting. The introduction of 42 volt systems will effect the way that light sources are powered. A committee has been formed which interfaces with other vehicle and industry groups to make sure that the implementation of this technology is supported. The SAE Lighting Committee has always worked well with the National Highway Traffic Administration (NHTSA) to support technologies that may have a positive influence on safety. Rear end collisions have been a major cause of fatalities and one area where lighting equipment may have some means of reducing these types of accidents. We will be investigating potential methods for controlling existing lighting devices or supplementing these devices with additional lamps to better alert following drivers. An additional area of interest is with the mounting height of headlamps. With the increase in volumes of trucks on the road, the average height of headlamps has changed significantly. This characteristic has resulted in many complaints to the NHTSA concerning increased amounts of glare light from these vehicles. The Lighting Committee has established a "Mounting Height Task Force" to gather information and then propose means by which our standards could be revised to reduce the effects of this situation. The information gathered will be shared with NHTSA for possible inclusion into Federal Regulations. Harmonization Task Force The Harmonization Task Force is responsible for SAE J1735 that recommends a low and high beam pattern for headlamps suitable for driving in U.S., Europe, and Japan (pattern reversed). This task group has worked closely with ECE and Japanese industry and regulatory bodies to influence the formation of their standards so that real harmonization can be achieved. A low beam pattern has passed through the industry working group in Europe and is now before the United Nations group of experts for acceptance. Japan has already adopted a standard that achieves harmonization with U.S. requirements. This committee will continue to operate until full harmonization of forward lighting standards happens.

Discussion Forum